Inspector Javert

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Orie: You are... Ragna the Bloodedge, aren't you? Ragna: That's never a good question... Orie: Then it's true. You are the man who holds the Keystone, and are responsible for the slaughter of countless innocents! Don't try to deny it... it's all written down on this wanted poster! Ragna: What? Wait, that's... agh, seriously!? That stupid poster followed me to this world, too!?

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If sometimes clueless, Inspector Javert is the well-intentioned law enforcement officer (or detective, or Bounty Hunter) who honestly (if sometimes wrongly) believes that the hero is a bad guy and doggedly pursues him in a Stern Chase, seeking to get him. However, the trope is not confined to heroes, and the Javert frequently finds himself pursuing criminals of all stripes, often the powerful or influential Mafia Boss or Villain with Good Publicity. In that case, he will be treated in-story as a noble hero who is completely immune to temptation and utterly dedicated to his duty. This can even apply to petty criminals, resulting in, say, ten years chasing down a thief who stole a loaf of bread.

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At some point, however, the officer and accused have to team up to fight a common enemy, or the movie or series ends with them discovering that their entire campaign to bring the hero to justice was in vain, or he is innocent and finds evidence to prove it or they decide to just let them go with a "five minute head start", or something to that effect.

Detective Heinrich Lunge in Monster takes this to the point that he knowingly destroys his life. To Lunge's credit, he eventually learns the truth of the situation, apologizes to Tenma, takes down Roberto, and eventually reconnects with his daughter.

Officer Natsuko in Re: Cutie Honey, at leastat first. Honey is the only one that can fight Panther Claw, but she is acting outside the law (and her constant Clothing Damage from battles also paint her as an exhibitionist), so Nat-Chan is determined to arrest her.

Detective Angelica Burns in Coyote Ragtime Show. In her defense, Mister is a legendary criminal mastermind and one of her only leads to find the MacGuffin treasure (which was the loot of the theft of the biggest multi-planetary bank around) and taking down the Big Bad Madame Marciano. However, Mister is (at his worst) an Anti-VillainGentleman Thief (with much higher standards than the Madame and her "children"), and so Burns' drive to capture Mister looks a bit misplaced.

Police Inspector Saehara in D.N.Angel, with a bit of a variation. Dark really is a thief, he's just got a good reason for it.

Inspector Wizer of Slayers Revolution, whose insistence that Lina is responsible for all the evils of the world is quickly becoming a Running Gag. It's subverted, however: Inspector Wizer was pretending to be a personification of this troupe, when it's revealed he just acts this way to manipulate people into doing what he wants. His act even manages to fool Xellos! Unlike most versions of this, however, Lina Inverse is not Wrongly Accused. He's got her dead to rights, of the crime of being Lina Inverse.

Smoker, and by extension Tashigi. Subverted when Smoker was proven right about the chaos Luffy would cause.

It's also confirmed that Vice-Admiral Garp was this to Gold Roger. He still agreed to raise Roger's son, at the other's request.

Quent from Wolf's Rain is a variation — he isn't a lawman, but he does believe the wolves (or, rather, wolves in general) are responsible for the death of his family, and he obsessively hunts them at every turn.

Claymore: Priscilla burns for the blood of Teresa for "killing humans". Never mind that the humans were ravaging a village at the time, doing so much damage that Teresa wondered if killing the youma in said village was a good idea, since the bandits stayed away while the youma was there.

In Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, Ushio fits this so well for Yusei, his prisoner number might as well have been 24601. He eventually lightens up later on.

In the Cowboy Bebop episode "Cowboy Funk", Cowboy Andy mistakes both Spike and Jet on separate occasions of being the Teddy Bomber... even with the real Teddy Bomber standing right next to them both times.

Played with in Death Note. The master-detective L appears to be this in the eyes of the other characters, particularly Chief Yagami, in his absolutely relentless pursuit of Villain ProtagonistLightYagami, as he has no real reason to believe that Light is guilty and his methods are extreme. Subverted in that he's actually right about Light, who really is a brutal Serial Killer... Then L becomes this for real during the Yotsuba arc when Light's memory is erased, since Light is no longer Kira at that time and L continues to pursue him passionately. However, once Light's memory is restored, Light is guilty again and L's actions become justified, bringing him back to Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist status.

Three of these appear in Hana no Ko Lunlun. The first one shows up in England (pursues Sayid for having been a petty thief but is foiled when he and Lunlun set out for Morocco), the second is seen in Egypt (pursues Lunlun as a side effect of her unknowingly becoming the accomplice of a Gentleman Thief - he catches the thief but lets Lunlun go), and the third one appears in Sicily (is on the case of Dario the bank robbing Anti-Villain who's about to slip away because of the state of regulations; but when Dario shows up to save a trapped Lunlun from an airtight bank vault, he allows Dario to leave as a free man since not only he chose Lunlun over his freedom, he actually turned himself in five minutes after the state kicked in.)

Fullmetal Alchemist has Mustang and his crew do this to the Elric brothers. However, instead of wanting to arrest or kill them, he demanded to know why they ran off and didn't ask for his help.

Junko Hattori of Demon King Daimao has a rather nasty habit of this. When we're first introduced to her, she attacks Akuto because she automatically assumes that he was trying to mug her grandmother when he was just helping her out. After the reveal that Akuto is destined to become the next Demon King, Junko repeatedly hassles and tries to kill him, repeatedly mistaking his attempts to actually be good as evil.

Lupin III subverts this with Inspector Zenigata. Although driven to capture Lupin and his gang to the point of obsession, Zenigata isn't so blind as to realize that unlike other career criminals, Lupin has a code of honor which leads to a mutual sense of respect between them despite being on opposite sides of the law. He also realizes that there are far worse individuals than Lupin and will begrudgingly join forces with him if doing so will serve the greater good. But that won't stop him from going back to chasing after Lupin once he's finished processing the villain of the week that they'd joined forces to take down.

Game Master of Gundam Build Divers plays this frustratingly straight. During the initial Break Decal storyline, despite people approaching him and admitting their usage of the titular illegal items and video footage of people using them, he refuses to apprehend anyone because the Gunpla Battle Nexus Online game does not register the items and, thus, they haven't done anything illegal. On the other hand, when he realizes that Sarah is actually an electronic lifeform and threatening the game by her existence, he goes after her guns blazing, refusing to acknowledge the fact that she's a one-of-a-kind AI, but just "a bug"

Silver from Archie Comics' Sonic the Hedgehog has tendencies of this, being a time traveller. While trying to Set Right What Once Went Wrong by finding and stopping a traitor in the Freedom Fighters, he accuses and tries to attack Sonic, Rotor, and Antoine in that order, every time with very little to go on. He actually began to accuse Bunnie Rabbot of being the traitor based on the knowledge that she left without telling anyone, but Sonic, who was already on the verge of strangling him for accusing Antoine, snapped and effectively dissuaded him from that one, telling him to pack up and go home, because he's really not helping.

Judge Dredd: Old Stone Face can go here. Oh how he can go here. Dredd is extremely rigid in his application of the law, so he'll chase after people no matter how small the crime (even across parallel universes, as his crossovers with Batman can demonstrate). Played with in that he's not completely unreasonable though, as he has (occasionally, and on a good day) been shown to use his judgment to go easy on people because of special circumstances.

Ms. Tree has Captain Miller, who is constantly trying to put the eponymous heroine behind bars for her vigilante activities.

A non-cop example, and arguably the most prominent comic-book example; J. Jonah Jameson, former editor of the Daily Bugle and current mayor of New York, and perpetual thorn in the side of Spider-Man. Depending on who's writing him, he's depicted as total Jerkass, or as a semi-honorable businessman. When Peter was framed for murder during The Clone Saga, Jameson paid for Peter's legal defense. When Bastion threatened his life if he refused to print an editorial condemning mutants, Jameson (a civil-rights advocate) refused to give in to threats. Jameson is a skinflint, a tight-wad and on occasion a Bad Boss, but is also often portrayed as a man with a strong sense of honor and fair play. And no matter how much good Spider-Man does for the city of New York, Jameson will still make it his mission to bring Spider-Man down. In the Ultimate Universe Jameson's positive qualities are played up a lot more, to the point where he eventually recognises Spider-Man as a hero (and he just restarts his crusade because he, at first, believes Miles Morales is desecrating Peter's memory. He lets go once Miles builds a better rep).

General Sam Lane (Lois' father) has been portrayed as this to Superman, of all people. Pre the New 52, in the New Krypton storyline, he was straight up General Ripper who was determined to destroy Superman's reputation and kill him, regardless of who got hurt in the process. In the New 52 Action Comics, General Lane is portrayed as this in Superman's early years, where Superman is still a mysterious Good Is Not Nice vigilante. He's still gunning for Superman, believing him to be a potential threat to America, but he's not the psychotic genocidal General Ripper he was before the reboot.

Captain America is this in Target X. He feels personally responsible for all the killings X-23 has carried out because she slipped his grasp after her field test by masquerading as a wounded survivor. He reveals he's been tracking her down ever since (approximately six years) and is obsessed with bringing her to justice. He's driven to the point where he completely ignores Matt Murdock's attempts to warn him that S.H.I.E.L.D. won't care really about justice but instead will use her as a weapon the same way she was used by the Facility. Before he can actually turn her over, however, he recognizes the truth of this and that Laura was as much a victim as the people she killed, and lets her go.

He goes back to this during the road to Secret Wars 2016, hunting down the Illuminati and goading every superhero he converses with into a With Us or Against Us situation—either they help him or they are abetting the Illuminati (even by inaction). Granted, the latter have all but Jumped Off The Slippery Slope in their quest to save Earth 616 from the Incursions (and seek no other methods, thinking I Did What I Had to Do justifies everything), but people do point out that Rogers is wasting time and resources better used to try to stop the Incursions on his manhunt... which he ignores.

Subverted with the final Garth Ennis arc of The Punisher MAX, where a cabal of corrupt American generals (planning to go corporate) sic Delta Force on Frank Castle, both to bring him in (the generals intending to kill him) and to recover a video tape of him interrogating their agent (who'd identified them). It turns out that the unit commander Colonel George Howe genuinely believes that the Punisher is a criminal who must be brought in... but, since he was rescued from captivity during the Vietnam War by Frank Castle's special operations team, he felt obligated to preserve Frank Castle's life — wanting to put him on trial, not put him down. (Eventually the generals' liaison with the Colonel believes that that's why he was so receptive to the orders.) After Frank Castle tells him about the tape and one of the generals inadvertently exposes his motivation, Howe views the tape and decides to release Castle so that he can kill the generals... but since the tape would so damage the credibility of the military, he flat-out tells Castle that he won't reveal the generals' crimes.

Superlópez: Oh Holmez. He's less efficient and ruthless than the typical Javert, but every little bit as bureaucratic and single-minded.

After The Dark Phoenix Saga, and Jean's Heroic Sacrifice and subsequent return, some elements of the Shi'ar don't know, or at least don't believe, what we know about her: Continuity Snarl affects the details, but basically, Dark Phoenix wasn't all Jean and was definitely under More Than Mind Control which Mastermind and Emma Frost had been working on her for months. Jean Grey didn't wake up one morning and decide it might be amusing to wipe out the five billion inhabitants of the planet D'Bari, and does not normally have the power to do such a thing if she did want to; it was the perfect storm of circumstances that cannot be replicated. But to this day, they pursue her and other relatives of hers, fearing the return of Dark Phoenix. Worse, most of their actions are the sort of thing that would make Jean decide to go kick their asses if she did ever return to that power level. It's Bullying a Dragon to the extreme: "There's this woman we fear is a cosmic destroyer, Galactus squared in terms of power and can never die, but who made a Heroic Sacrifice to stop herself, and has been nothing but heroic ever since her return. I know! Let's target her whole family for death on the off-chance that one could potentially become a Phoenix host!" They top themselves when they go after a time displaced teenage Jean Grey and put her on trial for crimes she hasn't even committed (yet). J'son of Spartax of all peopleis the one who calls out Gladiator on his blatantly unfair treatment of her during the trial. Not because he gives a damn about her of course, but because he wants to make the Shi'ar look bad. Then again, it's to say they didn't deserve it.

For years Bishop was determined to prove Gambit would one day betray the X-Men, regardless of how many heroic acts Gambit would perform. This plot thread was laid to rest when the traitor was revealed to be Onslaught. During the Messiah Complex arc, he became this to Hope (because on his timeline she grew up to be a villain) and in doing so (by means of trying to kill her when she was only minutes born and refusing any other alternatives) he jumped the Moral Event Horizon. He was so extreme that when Cable and Hope kept escaping with a time machine that only went forward, he decided the best way to corner them was to wipe out humanity and render the Earth uninhabitable (reasoning that he could just undo it later with his time machine). It took some serious handwaving to rehabilitate him after that.

The Disney Ducks Comic Universe stories have more than a few in stories that involve Paperinik, Donald Duck's superhero alter ego (in no small part due him starting out as an outright criminal). The most notable are:

Inspector Pinko, who chases Paperinik for no apparent reason beyond "he looks like a criminal".

Colonel (later general) Clint E. Westcock has this dynamic with Paperinik, and was actually extatic when he was ordered to arrest him, due Paperinik infiltrating a secret base and getting away with it. He changes his opinion after the Evronians raid his command, the Dept. 51, and Paperinik holds the line alone long enough for the soldiers to rally and come to the rescue.

Detective Spader, from Duckburg's police department, tries to arrest Paperinik because, even if his contributions in keeping the crime down are undeniable (and will use his help to deal with other criminals), he still remains a vigilante who breaks the law all the time.

Serenity: In the The Horseshoe Nails series by Dyce, the Operative actually takes the name Javert. The second Operative appears to take the name Marius, although this is only mentioned in passing. 'Marius has been shot, which is keeping with the literature but should not be encouraged.'

The Truth Decays plays with this with Konoha's Torture & Interrogation Division dealing with Edward Elric: Ed, because he's an Alchemist, has abilities that make him a Wild Card too powerful to ignore (and they wish to understand), and coming from Amestris (a place that doesn't exists in the Naruto-verse, but still) means that he comes from a country that may or may not become a threat later on, and in the aftermath of the Sound Invasion Arc they are too skittish about possibly hostile unknowns to leave Ed alone (but they try to treat Ed nicely... except that Ed keeps pissing everybody off). Danzo and ROOT, however, toss any and all sympathetic parts of this trope out the window from the very first second they are on-screen and never look back, putting a mask of a more "regular" Javert (Ed wrecked half of town, he's a possible threat to Konoha) in order to have full access to anything Ed says (and they are ok with doing stuff like decimating innocent citizens to try to make him talk).

In To Hell and Back (Arrowverse), Eddie towards the Streak/The Flash. It has shades of Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist considering that the Flash has committed murder, but the sympathy decreases as Eddie's obsession grows.

Films — Animation

Impresario Tetti-Tatti in "The Whale Who Wanted to Sing at the Met" segment of Make Mine Music. And he mistakenly believes Willie the Whale has swallowed opera singers by (mis)interpreting the Bible story of Jonah and the whale.

WALLE: The Microbe Obliterator (M-O) takes great pride in his work. Whatever contaminants enter his domain are thoroughly purged with the efficiency only a robot can have. He sees WALLE as a cancer upon the great Axiom, as the trash-compacting robot unintentionally leaves filth and pestilence in his wake. M-O knows not and cares not for why WALLE has come to the Axiom. He only knows that WALLE must be cleansed. Nothing will distract him from his goal. Not distance, not danger, not even the rules that he has lived by his entire life. The road is long, for he must purge the filth that serves as his trail to the heretic. But when he finds WALLE, he will be at his weakest. He will be at his mercy. And he will be cleansed. And then they'll become BFF. note For those without a sense of humor, M-O is the most adorable example ever. He's actually after WALLE because WALLE is threatening his germ-free domain. After giving WALLE a thorough clean-up, they become best buds

Maximus of Tangled is a horse with a personal vendetta against Flynn Rider and will stop at nothing to bring him to justice. Until he gets charmed by Rapunzel to help her and Flynn, that is.

Films — Live-Action

Taken Up to Eleven in Deux Hommes dans la Ville (a.k.a. Two Against the Law and Two Men in Town), where it is a major plot drive. In fact, a main cause of the film's Downer Ending.

Street Angel: Neri, sergeant of police, who chases Angela after an attempted robbery, then when she escapes jail, and later comes for her after she returns to Naples.

Four of the five Mission: Impossible films have one in pursuit of Ethan Hunt (IMF superiors Kittridge and Brassel in the first and third films respectively, inspector Sidorov in the fourth and CIA agent Hunley in the fifth). The second film is the only exception.

Technically also applies in Mission: Impossible  Fallout, as the 'Javert' equivalent, CIA agent August Walker, is actually the Big Bad, who is working as a mole in the CIA to try and provoke them into going after Hunt.

The Frighteners gives us Occult Detective Milton Dammers who aggressively harasses protagonist Frank Bannister becauses he's convinced that Frank is responsible for the murders that happen throughout the film. In addition to being this trope, he's also quite the fruitloop (implied to be the result of past experiences being tortured by another cult).

Detective Spooner in the film I, Robot is a subversion, as he is the main character. In his determination to apprehend Sonny for murder, he stumbles across something even more sinister... And it turns out he's right.

Hobbs in Fast Five is characterized this way until he decides to help Dom because his team was killed and he wants revenge. After an Enemy Mine for a day or two, he gives Dom a mercy lead.

Hobbs: Give me those documents. (throws them aside) All I care about is that Toretto is a name on a list!

The main bad guy in Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay could be seen as a parody/deconstruction of this trope, showing just how irrational, prejudiced and wilfuly ignorant a law enforcement official would need to be to believe the protagonists really are terrorists.

"It's obvious these kids are innocent, but you're too dumb to realise it"

Dark City: Inspector Frank Bumstead hotly pursues protagonist John Murdoch for a series of murders that John is innocent of. The reality-twisting alien Strangers have created the murders but were interrupted before they could create the murderer! John is eventually arrested, but Frank's open mind has been picking up on the real story: when John demonstrates world-view shattering abilities to manipulate reality himself Frank is ready to be recruited to fight the real villains. And then he gets hurled into space.

Red: Agent William Cooper. He's a CIA agent tasked to hunt down the main characters and doesn't question the motive behind the mission because he's just simply doing his job. Once he discovers the real truth behind the kidnapping of the Vice President and the conspiracy behind it, he not only lets the main characters go, but shoots his boss dead and then "handles" the fallout of the whole affair.

Henry Burke in Race to Witch Mountain, a Men in Black-type government operative, whose job is to hunt down and capture the two aliens running around - he doesn't care if the aliens appear to be human teenagers. Or if, y'know, letting them go would be what prevents the Alien Invasion that is being planned back on their home planet from actually happening.

Inspector John Acheson, in 2010's The Tourist. He wants to continue pursuing clever thief Alexander Pearce, even after Pearce leaves a check to cover the 'seven hundred and forty four million' he owed in back taxes. But Acheson's superior overrides him, pointing out that all Pearce did was steal from a gangster.

Although not law enforcement, Principal Rooney from Ferris Bueller's Day Off is scarily obsessive about catching Bueller to the point of landing him in this trope.

The hotel concierge in Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is religiously devoted to busting Kevin for "credit card fraud"(ie using his dad's credit card without permission) so much so that he threatens to call the police on Kevin, thereby scaring him into the streets, instead of contacting a social services agency and kindly asking Kevin about the matter. When Peter and Kate show up at the hotel, they're quick to chew him out over it.

Gustave the Station Inspector in Hugo fits this archetype in his determination to catch the protagonist, who has been living in the walls of the train station he is guarding.

Sheriff Cooley in O Brother, Where Art Thou? starts off chasing the main characters legitimately—they are, after all, escaped convicts—but displays all the self-righteous personality associated with the trope, and his true colors come through when he persists in trying to capture and hang the Soggy Bottom Boys after they have publicly earned the Governor's pardon (and he knows it).

Timekeeper Leon in In Time: the sad part is, in a way he ends up triggering off the entire catastrophe his job is designed to avoid, simply because he cannot or will not accept that a wealthy man with a century-plus on him could voluntarily relinquish that time to someone else. Had he been less zealous, one suspects that Will Salas would eventually have married into the Weis family (the film makes clear the attraction between him and Sylvia), and been in a perfect position to accomplish from within what he risked a lot to accomplish from without.

Customs agent Dave Kujan from The Usual Suspects is obsessed with arresting cop-turned-criminal Keaton. Trouble is, while there's little doubt that Keaton is a thief and murderer, he seems to be genuinely trying to go legitimate at the start of the movie. But Kujan's dogged pursuit lets Keaton's potential business partners know about his criminal background, torpedoing his career and sending him back to a life of crime. In Kujan's interactions with Verbal, we also see he's willing to break the law himself (including issuing death threats) if it means catching Keaton, and is so focused on that goal that he ignores any explanation that doesn't paint Keaton as the criminal mastermind behind everything.

Samuel Gerard in The Fugitive has a classic transition from pursuer to ally. Initially his job is bringing back Kimble, the truth about Kimble's conviction is not his business. The chase through the storm drains is also an obvious reference to Les Misérables, which has a similar scene towards the end of the book.

Impostor: Major Hathaway is chasing Dr. Spencer Olham because he's convinced that Olham is an alien biorobot who killed the original and took on his personality in order to detonate a bomb and kill the Chancellor. He plans to prove that by vivisecting Olham and disarming the explosive, but Olham escapes and spends the whole film trying to prove he's human. Hathaway turns out to be right, but missed that Olham's wife was also replaced and then fails to consider that both Olhams could have been impersonated, ending in Hathaway's death when the bomb explodes.

Sheriff Buford T. Justice in Smokey and the Bandit. He begins making up charges to go after Bandit for, caring little whether or not it's true, or even where he does and does not have jurisdiction (he seriously believes saying he's in 'hot pursuit' would allow him to chase Bandit all over the United States).

Inspector Aberline from The Wolfman (2010), appropriately enough. He blames all of the werewolf murders on Talbot and believes they are the result of him having gone insane, and chases after him once he has definite proof that the wolf-man is real and not Talbot's invention.

Sheriff Loomis is a more realistic example in The Wraith. At first he was this for a long time with Road Pirate, Packard Walsh; waiting and watching him slip up. However when the Wraith comes into the picture, he's on his pursuit list too, even though he doesn't really care since it's only Packard's gang the Wraith is after. He does everything in his power to investigate the Wraith, even opening up a cold case regarding Jamie Hankin's murder as it was one of the leads that clue him in to the Wraith's identity. He gives up when Packard dies and the Wraith is no longer around.

In Marmoulak, the Warden is a textbook case. He is an extremely cruel religious fundamentalist who pursues Reza Marmoulak tirelessly and declares his intention to force all the prisoners to go to heaven. However, he seems to genuinely believe that he is doing the right thing, and shows some signs of softening at the very end.

In Ant-Man, Scott's ex-wife's fiancé Paxton is a cop who is distrustful of Scott due to his criminal past, and later in the movie begins to pursue Scott after he escapes police custody, unaware that Scott is working to save the world. He eventually learns the truth and uses his position to clear Scott's charges.

T'Challa is this during his introductory appearance in Captain America: Civil War. After his father is killed in a bombing at a United Nations summit, he resolves to have his vengeance on Bucky Barnes, who has been publicly blamed for the attack. Of course, Bucky was framed for the attack by Helmut Zemo, but T'Challa assumes his attempts to flee from justice are a sign of guilt and doesn't listen when Bucky proclaims his innocence. Ultimately, T'Challa realizes his mistake upon overhearing Zemo admit to the bombing while eavesdropping on Barnes, and subsequently takes Zemo into custody; to make up for his hasty judgment, he allows the still-wanted Barnes to take refuge in Wakanda.

In Suffragette, Inspector Steed plays this role. Instead of acknowledging that women are unjustly denied the right to vote, he arrests women whose only 'crime' is protesting against that injustice.

X-Men: Apocalypse: Oddly enough, Colonel Stryker plays this role in the film. After Apocalypse took control of Professor X's mind and ordered him to control the nuclear missile controllers and send the missiles into space, Stryker tracks the signal to the X-Mansion and mistakenly believes that Xavier is actually the one who's behind it. So he leads a special forces to raid it and capture some key mutants to interrogate them about Charles' whereabouts.

In Sweet Country, black farmhand Sam Kelly kills white land-owner Harry March in self-defense and goes on the run, pursued by a posse led by Sergeant Fletcher. Fletcher initially assumes March was an innocent victim, partly out of racism and partly because he feels a comradeship with March because they were both ex-soldiers, and is determined to get Sam even after the rest of the posse gives up and turns for home. His attitude changes after Sam gets a chance to tell his side of the story and Fletcher learns what an Asshole Victim March was.

Bank Shot has 'Bulldog' Streiger, whose personal motto is "No one escapes 'Bulldog' Streiger". After Ballentine escapes, Streiger pursues him all the way to Los Angles, and organises a multi-agency taskforce in an attempt to bring him to justice. At the end of the film, he is vowing to learn to swim and then swim to Samoa to continue the chase.

The book named the trope with the original Inspector Javert. In his face, the narrator describes seeing "what could be called all the evil of good." Javert subverted the trope of maniacal lawfulness once in the book: during the street brawl of Fantine and Monsieur Bamatabois, he thought her guilty of everything and refused to hear how she had been attacked, because she was a prostitute. A character true to the spirit of the trope would have accused both of them. This is a display of idealism rather than stupidity—Fantine, being a prostitute, was already a law-breaker, whereas Monsieur Bamatabois was 'innocent.' Similarly, he refuses to accept that Jean Valjean was not necessarily in the wrong when he stole a loaf of bread, and he follows Valjean mercilessly for decades for what amounted to a parole violation. Worst of all even after Valjean saves his life, Javert still can't make himself admit that he's wrong, and is actually Driven to Suicide for his failure, in effect killing himself over his failure to accomplish a goal that never had any real importance.

Alternatively, he could instead have realized justhow wrong he was about the world, and critically failed to cope. The lead-up to his suicide goes on for several pages, as we watch him struggle with a dilemma he can barely process. He seems to finally get the idea that the law is maybe too harsh on convicts: one of his last acts is to write down a list of pragmatic reforms for the local prison, such as suggesting that they should stop making prisoners stand around barefoot in the freezing cold because when they get sick it's expensive to treat them. But this is, perhaps, the essence of his dilemma: he has operated under the belief that "law" and "good" are the same entity, but in this instance, they're clearly not. Letting Valjean go is moral, but unlawful; imprisoning him again is lawful, but immoral. No matter what he does, he betrays his purpose; since he can't serve his purpose, he finds no reason to live.

Also of note is that when Javert isn't chasing Valjean, he's otherwise very good at his job. He leads a group of Paris police officers in catching the Patron-Minette street gang, and correctly pegged "Monsieur Madeleine" as Valjean. However, when a case of Mistaken Identity leads him to think that he had Wrongly Accused Madeleine, he begs Valjean to dismiss him for his screwup-showing that Javert is no more tolerant of his own sins than he is of anyone else's. Javert lives the most rigid and unyielding code of conduct of anyone in the novel, and shows mercy to no one - not even himself. By releasing Valjean, he's committed a capital crime. As a man of the law, his code of conduct requires that he give his life as punishment for that crime.

When Javert, in a particular scene, asks to be resigned from his duty because he thought Madeleine was Valjean, something he adamantly resists believing because "Madeleine" is an authority person (from his perspective), Valjean/Madeleine promptly asks him to go back to work, because he understands what an excellent policeman Javert initially is.

John Mandrake, from The Bartimaeus Trilogy, is a fairly high-ranking government official charged with wiping out the Resistance. He genuinely believes the Government to be in the right, and continues hunting down the final member of the Resistance until the government collapses and demons attack London.

Bezu Fache in The Da Vinci Code. He believes that Langdon is in the conspiracy that killed Jacques Sauniere (and because Langdon ran away because of him being a target for said conspiracy... well... Not Helping Your Case).

Inspector Glebski from The Dead Mountaineer's Hotel is a rare example of the main character playing Javert. He has some pretty good reasons, but eventually his actions are directly responsible for the Downer Ending.

Morgan. He starts out as a Well-Intentioned Extremist and almost malicious about it, but after seven books or so his opinion of Harry gets upgraded to "reckless and unpredictable but probably not evil" (which, to be fair, is pretty accurate). He's at least suspicious until the book he dies in, but he eventually becomes willing to listen to Harry and give him a chance.

Murphy occasionally acts as this, as well, though only in the first book— after Harry fully explains The Masquerade to her in Summer Knight (rather than giving her minimum information as cases demanded), she's much more cooperative.

Her former co-worker, Rudolph, went in the opposite direction as her. While Murphy went from a Javert-ish policewoman (Towards Harry, anyway) to a far more reasonable character that didn't beat him up and/or arrest him like she did in the first two books, Rudolph went from a reasonably character that trusted Harry to JerkassSmug Snake that will try to have Harry and Murphy arrested at any possible time, even if that means lying his ass off.

Sherlock Holmes and his brother, Mycroft, in the Enola Holmes series. In this case, they are simply doing what they thought was right trying to find their naive 14 year old runaway sister and force into Finishing School before something terrible happens to her. However, by the end of the series over that year of hunting her, Sherlock slowly realizes that Enola has grown into a capable young woman and a brilliant professional detective in her own right. As such, his determination to capture Enola fades until he helps her prove herself to Mycroft who soon respects her liberty.

The Fear Index has Leclerc who by the end is completely convinced that Alex is mentally unhinged and tries to stop him.

In the Gaunt's Ghosts novel Blood Pact Inquisitor Rime seems too eager to see Gaunt guilty of being a Chaos agent. When it turns out that Rime is really a Chaos officer, things suddenly make so much sense.

The Ministry of Magic much of the time, especially under the Fudge administration — especially in Book Five, when they make Harry and Dumbledore each into a Hero with Bad Publicity for daring to say that Voldemort has returned, even though it's true, because the Ministry thinks it's the best way not to cause a panic. Voldemort presses the issue later by appearing right in front of the Ministry of Magic, proving Harry and Dumbledore right beyond all possible doubt, which sends the Wizarding World into a panic anyways.

The Dementors are entities that pursue their target with unrelenting, cold calculation, although they also don't distinguish between "the one they hunt and the one who gets in their way." The Dementors rigorously pursue Sirius Black throughout the books, even though Black was found to be innocent of murder, because he escaped from jail.

Umbridge initially seems to be this, in her first appearance by Book 5. By Deathly Hallows, though, it's clear that the law is more just a way to quench some sadistic and power-hungry impulses (whereas, an Inspector Javert follows the law to the letter because they believe in the moral rightness of it).

The Seeker in The Host, who is convinced that Wanderer is still alive even after she disappears after days in the desert and continues to search for her for months.

Paula Myo from the Pandora's Star series by Peter F. Hamilton is genetically engineered to be an Inspector Javert, to the point where she turns in her parents, who kidnapped her at birth for their crimes. When circumstances force her to decide between arresting the Well-Intentioned Extremist and saving the human race from extinction, she suffers a near-fatal nervous breakdown.note Technically a direct homage to Les Misérables, since Javert DOES suffer a nervous breakdown (and commits suicide), when Valjean's compassion forces him to confront the reality that morality and law are not the same thing.

Chauvelin of The Scarlet Pimpernel — hmmm... must be a French thing. Charged with hunting down the Pimpernel, he pursues his quarry with a singleminded determination that borders of fanaticism. And he has no qualms about using aristocratic prisoners as live bait for the Pimpernel.

Inspector Russell Flint in Tom Sharpe's novel Wilt, who thinks Wilt has murdered his wife. He's even worse in The Movie based on the book.

In quite a few of Discworld City Watch books deliberately set up Commander Sam Vimes as a subversion of this trope. He is absolutely dedicated to the law, and will doggedly pursue any criminal...as long as it's just. This is made most obvious in Night Watch, where he pursues the murderous criminal Carcer, who complains he's being unfairly prosecuted just for stealing a loaf of bread.

In The Watchmaker Of Filigree Street, Dolly Williamson of Scotland Yard is convinced that the titular watchmaker is responsible for making the bombs that Irish nationalists have been setting off in London, and harasses him throughout the book. It turns out to be the clockmaker working as a police consultant.

In The Spirit Thief, Miranda is an agent of the Spirit Court tasked with hunting down the main character, Eli, and she's practically obsessed with her task, trying to capture the man even when she's kicked out of the Spirit Court or in the middle of enemy territory. She loses the attitude once the Myth Arc takes over and she decides she's just being petty at this point.

Live-Action TV

Lieutenant Gerard, The Fugitive who will doggedly track down any sighting of Richard Kimble, no matter where it takes him in the country. Hardly surprising given that the character is designed as a modern version of Inspector Javert of Les Miserables.

Subverted in the series finale as Gerard comes to believe in Kimble's innocence at last and saves the doctor's life.

Reporter Jack McGee, The Incredible Hulk, who vows to hunt the Hulk down and bring the creature to the law's attention, believing that the Hulk had killed Dr. Marks and David Banner.

Detective Crumb from Early Edition wanted Gary Hobbes behind bars because of his constant appearance around various calamities. Understandably telling Crumb that a newspaper predicting the future was the reason he was around said calamities would have been a one-way ticket to a nuthouse.

At least in the first season of Angel, there was a detective named Kate who pursues Angel and his team somewhat relentlessly. Although sometimes she's an ally, eventually she turns into nothing but the Inspector Javert of the show, after her father is killed by vampires and she blames Angel. For example, after a Back from the Dead Darla tells her that Angel was behind a string of murders, Kate unhesitatingly storms the Hyperion with a SWAT team to have him arrested. However, she is forced to accept the truth when Gunn points out that Angel, being a vampire, couldn't possibly have just stormed in and killed someone in their own home unless he was explicitly invited or the residents were already dead. Later, Holtz takes up the role, though it's a bit more ambiguous as the crimes he seeks justice (or, increasingly, vengeance) for are ones Angelnote or at least his soulless self; Angelus has undeniably committed.

The cops and prosecutors from Perry Mason. This is a slight variant in that they believe the hero's clients to be guilty, rather than the hero himself.

In the second season finale of Sherlock, the entire police department becomes this for Sherlock himself.

The entire Federation is this in the eyes of the Maquis. It's somewhat telling that the destroyed Maquis ship whose crew later joined Voyager is mentioned as having being named the Valjean.

The trope namer is explicitly discussed in the episode. Sisko and Dax read a digital copy of the novel while discussing how to use it to thwart Eddington's plans (since Eddington sees himself as Valjean specifically as he has also read the novel), and Dax says she is not a fan of Victor Hugo's writing, saying it is too sprawling for her taste.

24 does this. All the time. The latest one has been Special Agent in Charge of D.C. Branch, Larry Moss, who believes Jack Bauer has gone off the far end with the death of Bill Buchanan, and is off on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge against everyone who has wronged him.

Completely subverted in the case of Chloe O'Brien in the final season. Chloe initially doesn't believe Jack's claims that the Russian government is really behind all the attacks on New York since she's worried he's snapped after the murder of Renee Walker. She's wrong about them not being involved. She's completely right about him going off the deep end. In the end Chloe now has to expose the Russians as the real villains and simultaneously keep Jack from killing them and starting an international crisis, instead making her a Sympathetic Inspector Antagonist.

All forms of law enforcement in Supernatural are after the brothers for the various crimes they have committed and been framed for over the course of their demon hunting careers. At one point when they realise that the FBI has a division working on their case they just sit, stare at each other and realise just how royally screwed they are if anyone catches them.

The Inspector Javert in this case is Agent Henricksen, who eventually comes around to the Winchesters' innocence in "Jus in Bello," before being killed by the Big Bad.

The marshal pursuing Kate on Lost He finally caught her, but then died in the plane crash.

This from Prison Break's creator and head writer: When the second season of Prison Break was pitched to the network as something akin to The Fugitive, executives asked the writers to include a "Tommy Lee Jones" antagonist to hunt down the protagonists. This led to the character of FBI Agent Mahone, who spent the first seven episodes portrayed as an intense, intelligent but well-intentioned FBI manhunter. Then he started murdering the fugitives, on the orders of the evil Company who threatened to kill his wife and son if he didn't comply. It got worse from there. Mahone's intelligence and ability to rival Michael turned him into an Ensemble Dark Horse. In the following seasons, Mahone's crimes committed while in pursuit of the protagonists ruined his role as Inspector Javert and made him part of the criminal team, and therefore one of the "good" guys.

Lt. Jon Kavanaugh of The Shield fits, though his target, Vic Mackey, isn't innocent to say the least despite being the protagonist.

Almost every season of Charmed had an SFPD detective out to expose the Halliwells, due to the proliferation of incidents that they seemed to be on the periphery of. Whether eventual ally, lover or near-caricature (Season 8's Sheridan actually best fits the Javert description) one and all tend to suffer for getting between the Halliwells and those targeting them.

Detective Dorn from Deadly Games was following the Charmed path, but the series was Cut Short before his investigation got very far.

Doubly subverted by Detective Tritter of House: he's really out for personal revenge against House, but House really is guilty of abusing prescription drugs. Tritter's entire basis for squeezing the hospital and House was that he was a suspected drug dealer, which is laughable considering how obsessive House is about hoarding his Vicodin.

Bilar Crais from Farscape is a combo if this and It's Personal, spending all of Season 1 being the Big Bad, trying to bring to justice/get revenge on John for accidentally causing the death of Crais' brother.

John Doggett on The X-Files starts out as this, with his belief that Mulder ran away for some mundane reason (so he's the Agent Scullyto Agent Scully) rather than it being the deed of the Government Conspiracy. It is after some time working as Scully's partner that he comes to believe Mulder's innocence.

Numerous characters from the Law & Order universe go through this from time to time, but the most egregious examples have been Jack McCoy and Elliot Stabler, both of whom have done things during cases that should have gotten them fired or even locked up.

Benson also displays this tendency, on multiple occasions confronting a suspect or person of interest who claims they either haven't done things or won't or are on the way to changing and telling them that people like "them" don't stop or change, and it's just a matter of time.

Doctor Who: The Judoon seem to be a whole race of Inspector Javerts. Ruthless, efficent, logical, and not really caring about the morality of the crime or sentence. That said, they will follow the laws of the planet they are on, such as following the speed limit in a car chase and handing out a promise to return/repay the car's owner for the trouble. Justice must be served.

In their first appearance, they transported an entire hospital to the moon in order to pursue their quarry without infringing on Earth's sovereign jurisdiction. The Doctor has to spent most of the episode outrunning them, since their execution order didn't specify not to kill any innocent alien they might find in the hospital.

The entire government of Gallifrey is this to The Doctor from as far back as the Second Doctor's story The War Games and have escalated to truly monstrous Ungrateful Bastard levels by Face The Raven. This has come to bite them in the ass, however, because their constant belief that The Doctor conspires against them has him declare "Then Let Me Be Evil" on the following episode, Heaven Sent, and seriously tried to do so.

Psi Cop Bester from Babylon 5. He is a consistent thorn in the side of the entire B5 crew and does a few truly reprehensible things to them, but it's usually because he genuinely believes that he is acting in the best interests of his people, the telepaths, who are persecuted by "mundanes" such as the B5 commanding staff. He is also always quick to remind them that he has the authority of the law behind him.

In The A-Team, the military police who are chasing the A-Team qualify as this, notably recurring antagonists Colonel Lynch, Colonel Decker, and General Fullbright. Fullbright doubles as a General Ripper.

Slater from Only Fools and Horses. He will nick for anything you've done! In fact he will nick you for anything you haven't done and he won't let a little thing like "Innocence" get in his way!

Detective Fales from Denver in Longmire. He's investigating Walt and Henry for the murder of the crackhead who killed Walt's wife. This bites him in the ass big time when Longmire discovers Fales suppressed evidence that would link David Ridges to said crackhead, and gives it to his daughter, allowing the charges against Henry to be dropped. The tragedy is that his targets are actually guilty of a series of lesser but still serious crimes but he is too focused on exposing Walt as a corrupt sheriff to consider the whole picture.

Renee Montoya plays this role in the early episodes of Gotham pursuing the mistaken belief that Jim Gordon framed Mario Pepper and murdered Oswald Copplepot. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Jim is engaged to her ex Barbara and she continues to carry feelings for Barbara. Her partner Crispus Allen calls her out of this saying she is taking things too personally.

Day Break: Detectives Spivak and Choi, who are investigating the Garza murder and proceed to arrest Hopper for the crime the conspiracy framed him for. Choi proves to be more reasonable than his partner however, and actually helps Hopper after Hopper saved his life in one loop. Spivak hated Hopper's father and is prejudiced against the son. In addition, he seems to be involved with the conspiracy, which is subverted — Shelton planted the evidence.

Murder, She Wrote: In "Badge of Honor", an old friend of Seth's arrives in Cabot Cove. He is followed by a private eye named Jarvis who has been dogging him for years, convinced that he was responsible for a jewellery store robbery.

CSI: Miami had Internal Affairs Sergeant Rick Stetler, who constantly popped up the moment he so much as imagined any member of the team was doing something corrupt and had a very personal beef with Horatio Caine (because Caine had made Lieutenant before him, and Stetler decided to believe that Caine had done it through dirty means). He also had an abusive relationship with his girlfriend (who was Caine's sister-in-law through his dead brother) and was finally Put on a Bus to Hell when he was discovered to have been stealing impounded vehicles to sell off and had an Assistant District Attorney killed to keep it quiet.

Kaitou Sentai Lupinrangervs Keisatsu Sentai Patranger gives us Keiichiro Asasi/Patran #1, the leader of the Patrangers. Despite the rival team, the Lupinrangers, stealing away the Lupin Collection from the villains to protect them, he is unflappable in his dedication in eradicating crime and has declared them criminals because "a thief will always be a thief". This is a source of grief for both teams, but he opts to letting them go if something more pressing happens after a while.

Winger takes on this role in TekWar. He doesn't trust the protagonist due to his criminal history and, being an android, has a rigid investigative method. In spite of this, he isn't a bad guy and believes in his principles and respecting people's legal rights (whereas other characters will bend the rules to get what they want). One episode dealt with him having a vital component stolen which, if not recovered, would lead to mental instability and eventually death. The component couldn't be easily replaced to laws against androids and manufacturing these components. He insisted on providing a method so he could be killed if he became a danger to public safety and refused to accept a replacement if doing so meant violating the law.

During the hunt for The Mole, Pharisee came to the conclusion, with much tangible evidence to support it, that Amanda Claw was actually Silencia Venomosa, a ruthless assassin and mercenary, and was thus most likely the Mole. While he was correct in his deduction of Venomosa's identity, what he could not comprehend was that Venomosa had retired and was striving to redeem herself of her crimes. As a result, he was wrong about Amanda being the Mole.

During the Final Battle, there is one point where Pharisee, while tracking down a pair of deserters (including one Boxed Crook), was mercilessly beating Montoya, a former small-time criminal who was also trying to go straight and was just trying to get back home to his wife. After tracking down one of the deserters, Pharisee did have a Heel Realization of sorts in regards to the needlessly brutal treatment of Montoya.

Theater

In the musical of Les Misérables, the literal Inspector Javert is a flanderized version of himself. He comes across as completely obsessed with catching Valjean and Valjean alone, as opposed to being the well-intentioned extremist he is in the novel. It's mainly due to the necessary distillation of the 1900+ pages that was the original work.

Bells Are Ringing has Inspector Barnes, a Vice Squad cop eager to get a promotion by closing down Susanswerphone on the flimsiest circumstantial evidence that the answering girls are too close to their subscribers.

In The Scarlet Pimpernel, Chauvelin- just like the original character in the eponymous novel- is an agent of the French revolutionaries and once ordered to hunt down the Scarlet Pimpernel, he stops at nothing to do so.

Video Games

Agent Nightengale from Alan Wake has convinced himself that the eponymous hero is responsible for his own wife's dissappearance, and is utterly bullheaded towards any attempts, by Alan or otherwise, to dissuade him of this.

Noel in Blazblue is this when she comes across Ragna, the highest bounty criminal wanted by her organisation NOL. This was dropped as she came to learn about him personally. It helps that she's far nicer and more sympathetic the other holders of this trope. Her friend Tsubaki is a straighter example, as she actively hates Ragna since she (wrongly) believes that he's the cause of all her friends' suffering. Unlike Noel, Tsubaki refuses to view Ragna as anything more than a criminal.

In the Templar path, Knight Commander Meredith believes that Hawke somehow masterminded the entire Mage-Templar conflict and that he/she is a greater threat to Kirkwall than the rogue Circle that Hawke just helped her to Annul. At the beginning of the Final Battle, she prays to the Maker to give her the strength to defeat the great evil she imagines Hawke to be. She has a moment of doubt when she realizes she's losing, but it passes quickly.

In the Mage path, if Hawke is a Mage, she believes that in addition to orchestrating the rebellion, they're using Blood Magic to corrupt her fellow Templars and turn them against her. She becomes even more convinced of this when Knight-Captain Cullen finally has enough of her tyranny and tells her that if she wants to arrest Hawke, she has to go through him first. At that point in the game, it's obvious that she's been driven kind of insane by the Lyrium Idol.

Carla and Tyler from Fahrenheit. Subverted in that they are absolutely correct in their suspicions of Lucas; it's just that the Ancient Conspiracy is far more important than the murder he committed.

As The Captain of Alexandria's 'Knights of Pluto', Steiner is naturally distrustful of Gentleman Thief Zidane's intentions with Princess Garnet. Zidane's a decent guy, if a bit of a Chivalrous Pervert. It's just that Steiner believes that Zidane kidnapped the princess and it's his duty to take her back home. While technically true, it ignores the context that Garnet asked to be captured, Zidane saved her life, and Queen Brahne has gone completely off the deep end into a tyrant, which Steiner only realizes after Brahne tries to kill Garnet to get the eidolons from her body. Once that happens, Steiner begins to realize that he had some part in what's happened, and vows to make amends.

Beatrix is in a full My Country, Right or Wrong mindset from the outset, though she questions why she has to do such horrible things in the name of Alexandria. It's only once Beatrix is ordered to slaughter an entire town of pacifists that she begins to question following the Queen's orders, and only after Steiner's own moment of realization that she actually rebels.

The first Front Mission game features the O.C.U. and U.S.N. (later called U.C.S.) as this trope toward one another, being two rivaling super-powers until the cease-fire that incorporates them both into the Peace Mediation, which together becomes this toward the "terroristic" Soul of Huffman.

The Commander (Lloyd/custom name) ends up as this toward Driscoll, except that he turns out more exactly right than he ever assumed.

It is interesting to note that Colonel Olson, who rags on the main commander for such a thing, himself pretending to be this to disguise being one of the two moles!

Heavy Rain, Spiritual Successor of Fahrenheit, has Lt. Blake thinking that Ethan Mars, the Red Herring suspect, is the Origami Killer. He's wrong. He's less heroic as other examples, being an incompetent Rabid Cop who is convinced of Ethan's guilt despite the flimsy evidence.

The police in Jet Set Radio, to an extent; the main characters are fighting for free expression, but since they do so via graffiti...

Spectre Jondam Bau from Mass Effect 3 to Kasumi. Okay, Kasumi really is a thief, but it's a bit odd to be pursuing a woman who mostly goes for artwork during the Reaper invasion, when one would think the focus would be on the ancient beings who are out for the blood of every sentient organic race. He does respect her enough that when she sends him a tip relating to the war he pursues it, but after she saves his life and either dies or appears to his first reaction is "I was going to arrest her!"

Deputy Chief Jim Bravura in the original Max Payne. He returns in the sequel as Da Chief with the eponymous protagonist serving under him.

Goyoda Heiji/Bob Copper in Mega Man Star Force. He has a valid reason to believe Mega Man is bad in the anime, as he at one point cuts open a truck full of radio viruses slated (presumably) for cleaning or deletion while trying to escape a particularly nasty enemy. Though the man is hilariously incompetent at this, despite being very competent at everything else regarding his job, and very, very persistent. Geo seems to be incredibly good at this Clark Kenting thing.

Mega Man Zero: The Neo Arcadians, four of them being the Four Guardians, hold this to an extreme against most reploids, including Zero in the first two games; whether Copy-X truly believes this or simply pretends is debatable. Later on, they all slowly come around, Fefnir the fastest and Leviathan the slowest.

Though in Zero 3 Harpuia has come around concerning Zero, he still takes a while learning to trust the rest of La Résistance.

The cops and prosecutors from Ace Attorney are similar to the ones in Perry Mason... well, except for Manfred von Karma in the first game, who knows damn well who the real killer is, because it's himself.

Franziska doesn't care if the defendant is guilty or innocent, as long as she wins the trial.

Edgeworth in particular is like this toward the end of the first game's second case (when Phoenix is the defendant). Not too long afterward, this trope gets subverted at the end of the third case when Edgeworth is convinced that Phoenix's client is innocent and joins Phoenix in going after one of the witnesses.

Shi-Long Lang, and his relentless hunt to convict criminals and his dislike for Edgeworth because he's a prosecutor, despite him reforming. Amusingly his wolf-like design inverts Javert's description as 'a Dog among Wolves.'

To some extent Vhailor from Planescape: Torment qualifies for this role. Although the nature of the story makes it go a rather unusual route. It gave him superhuman powers. He was conscious of it, and so was The Nameless One, whose Practical Incarnation decided to bottle him up, not just to put a halt to his relentless pursuit, but for later use.

Carmelita Fox from Sly Cooper believes Sly is nothing but a low-life criminal and will try to gun him down whenever she sees him. Sly's actually more of an Anti-Hero who steals from other criminals for his own purpose, but he's a whole lot better than the baddies in the series.

Leblanc, Adecor, and Boccos. They never quit chasing Yuri. Even when you fight Adecor and Boccos in the Coliseum, they're still trying to arrest him.

Flynn plays the part for a bit with Yuri, too.

Maiev Shadowsong in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne starts off as one, dedicating an exorbitant amount of time and energy into tracking down her former prisoner Illidan Stormrage. However, as the campaign goes on, she becomes increasingly determined to capture Illidan not for justice's sake, but to avenge the deaths of the Wardens who died guarding or trying to recapture Illidan, which leads to some very rash decisions and, eventually, her to being captured by the very man she was hunting. By the time The Burning Crusade expansion of ''World of Warcraft"" rolls around, it's stopped being about justice and has become very, very personal, to the point of where she finally exacts her revenge...only to find she's got nothing left to live for afterwards.

Fully subverted with her reappearance in the novel Wolfheart, where her Principles Zealotry leads her to turning against her own people, disgusted with them letting the Highbourne back into Night Elven society during her absence.

Inspector Juste Volerti of Aviary Attorney is described this way. The object of his focus is the Viridian Killer who severely injured him eighteen years ago. He comes to think the game's protagonist is this killer and does something awful and inethical trying to prove it.

The prosecutor Severin Cocorico had no single fixation, but is revealed to have once been convinced that his job was to put every criminal or potential criminal on the execution block or in prison. However he underwent Character Development and has become more willing to bend and chooses good over lawful any day.

Agent Rammer from Sluggy Freelance relentlessly tries to capture Dr. Schlock and Aylee, who are, admittedly, often on the murky side of the moral spectrum.

Klaus Wulfenbach from Girl Genius. He's chasing down Agatha when she hasn't done anything yet...but he has very good reason to not want an "untried Heterodyne heir" running amok through Europe. He also believes her to be The Other, given that the last time he met Agatha she was possessed by The Other. In the next arc, he'd be willing to ignore his grievous injuries and knock down Castle Heterodyne to get at her...if his own son wasn't in there too.

As of the first Paris storyline, Agatha is still possessed by the other and fairly predictable and minor incidents are known to be capable of giving the Other control, so Klaus' fears have been upgraded from paranoid fanaticism to 100% justified in all respects, making him more of a Hero Antagonist.

Captain Jhalm from Digger believes that Digger is dangerous and repeatedly tries to capture her.

Emile Severin from Sire is an inversion, believe it or not. While he regularly beats up Susan for being a Jerkass, he still treats her and Anna as innocent due to not knowing they're guilty of murdering Paul. It doesn't hurt that he's related to the actual Javert,either.

Unsounded has Captain Emil Toma and his subordinate, Elka, who both mistakenly believe Duane and Sette to be members of the Red Berry Boys, a gang that kidnaps people, cuts out the organs, and uses the space to smuggle an illegal substance inside them. On the plus side, they're at least also going after actual members of the Red Berry Boys.

Western Animation

One episode of Thomas the Tank Engine had Thomas run afoul of a particularly over zealous constable who makes a big deal out of Thomas travelling down a tramway without cowcatchers and side plates, to which Thomas remarks that he doesn't catch cows. The constable marks Thomas as a regular law breaker, despite the fact that his predecessor whom Thomas was good friends with had no problem with Thomas using that road. Supplementary materials written by the Reverend Awdry explain that the offending officer enforced small laws that none of his peers really cared about. In the time that the episode takes place in (1951), the law in question, a Ministry of Transportation regulation, had actually been repealed for several years, meaning that the constable was enforcing an outdated law.

Batman Beyond: Barbara tends to come off as such towards Terry. It's shown to its greatest extent in "Eyewitness," in which Spellbinder uses his illusion technology to make Barbara believe that Batman had murdered Mad Stan in cold blood. When he is exposed and promptly arrested, Spellbinder takes the time to taunt Barbara:

Spellbinder: You were so ready to believe the worst [in Batman], it was easy.

In the first two seasons of The Batman, the grouchy and hot tempered Chief Rojas was this to Batman, thinking him just as much a "freak" as the guys in Arkham. In the first season, Detective Ellen Yin was the same, but she changed her mind by season two, becoming Batman's ally.

Agent James Bennet in The Zeta Project genuinely believes that Zeta has been turned against them and is a threat. Despite the number of times he has saved people, the comments of his own team, and the time Zeta saved his own son. But this may have changed when he overheard that the chip in Zeta's head was a conscience chip, and is indeed not working for terrorists. However the show was canceled before anything could be shown.

SWAT Kats: Commander Feral, continually running them down to the media for the property damaged caused by actually stopping the threats to the public. At least partially because he and the Enforcers are unable to.

Truant Officer Langley Turk from the Fillmore! episode "Field Trip of the Just". Turk is determined to bust Fillmore for truancy because of Fillmore's delinquent past. Fillmore actually has a pass allowing him to be out of school, but Turk assumes it is a forgery.

To be fair when Turk had reason to to believe Filmore was playing truant since he ran away when asked to produce the pass again. Though by that point the pass had been destroyed so he 'couldn't' have given it to him. Not that Turk would have believed him anyway.

GatchamanExpies the S-Forcenote A pun on "G-Force", two of the three English dubbed versions of the show from Megas XLR come to Earth to fight Coop because they think he's a bad guy. So does their regular arch-nemesis, who wants to team up with him. Coop's attempts to prove that he is a good guy don't work out very well.

Leela is like this towards Fry when they first meet on Futurama, relentlessly pursuing him in attempt to assign him a career. It's later subverted, as she's chasing after Fry on orders only, and hates her job. This is what makes her quit and join Fry and Bender.

Jim from Code Lyoko is this for Season 1. He suspects that Jeremie and his friends are up to no good since they've been sneaking around a lot within the last few months. Near the end of the season, his determination to find out the truth leads to him chasing Jeremie through the dorms, which leads to the latter getting a twisted ankle and Jim being fired. But that leads to him learning the truth and becoming an ally, meaning that after the gang presses the Reset Button, he becomes a much better character.

On its continuation series The Legend of Korra, Chief Bei Fong's Establishing Character Moment is getting in Korra's face after she faces off against some members of the local Triad and demolishes half of the street taking them down and gives her the riot act, declaring that the fact she's the Avatar (and the reincarnation of her mother's best friend) will not earn her any special treatment from her (and almost has her tossed in jail until Tenzin arrives and negotiates). Many episodes afterwards have her treating Korra like a punk even after it's been made clear that The Cops Need The Avatar.

Amanda Killman from Bunsen is a Beast is determined to expose Bunsen as evil and dangerous when he's clearly nice.

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